


give me shelter (from my mind)

by KingKiller



Category: Fantastic Beasts and Where to Find Them (Movies), Harry Potter - J. K. Rowling
Genre: 1920s, Character Study, Cold Weather, Domestic, Families of Choice, Fix-It, Graves is a silver fox, Graves is a tough cookie, Hurt/Comfort, Internalized Homophobia, M/M, Newt Stays in New York, Newt is a Vegetarian, Newt is on the autistic spectrum, Nifflers, Pining, Post-Traumatic Stress Disorder - PTSD, Psychological Trauma, Recovery, and Newt is his milk
Language: English
Status: In-Progress
Published: 2016-12-02
Updated: 2017-05-13
Packaged: 2018-09-03 18:51:23
Rating: Not Rated
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 2
Words: 2,090
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/8726233
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/KingKiller/pseuds/KingKiller
Summary: Percival Graves comes back, but left more behind.And Newt Scamander is too nurturing of a soul to ignore it.(Newt stays in New York, Graves is found, they adventure, grow, eat too many of Jacob's pastries, and have family dinners with the Goldsteins)





	1. found in lost and found

**Author's Note:**

> This is Graves perspective mostly as he recovers and gains more in life.
> 
> Also Graves is disastrously hot and Newt is too fucking cute. Sorry--was I suppose to not think in the interrogation scene Newt was going to say "take me"
> 
> Because I would. I wish I could.

0.

Percival Graves was a strict man. The type that only saw right and wrong, black and white. No outliers, no exceptions.

He was the one to admit to his mother that his brother and he had broken the mirror rather than the house elf.

Perhaps that was the reason he wasn't that close to his siblings--no innocuous lies to tie them together.

He was the one to report his superior, who had been funneling obtained evidence into the black market after witnessing it at a speakeasy backroom. The superior had been treating him to drinks.

Perhaps that was the reason he had no friends--too straight laced to let loose.

Perhaps, in the end, they were the reasons why no one knew he was gone, leaving him to be the only one to hear his own screams.

1.

"We feared we had lost you, Mr. Graves," Seraphina’s face and tone were marble smooth. Graves gave no indication of noticing how she clenched a tear-stained handkerchief.

He stares at her for a moment, before rolling his head away. Muscles that had not existed hours ago, newborn and stiff, burn as he looks out the window. The snow is falling. 

"We were very fortunate to have found you." Graves bit back an ill-humored snort. Yes, as fortuitous as it has been for Grindelwald to find him that night.

_“Do you care to have a companion tonight?”_

"Well," he replies in his driest tone, relishing the feeling of his teeth being covering again. "I cannot say that was there was much fortune to any of the events that have occurred."

Seraphina with precision leans forward to gently place her hand over what had been a stump hours ago. The skin tingles to a numbing point as her naked skin runs over his. His eyes clutch close, flinching as he feels how her nail catches, rucking up his sleeve.

There's a pause, fingers gently smooth it back down.

"We have Grindelwald." Seraphina’s voice is a fierce and silent thunder, evoking the image of bloated black clouds in his mind. "A reign of terror done, Graves. Finally we find ourselves back in a time of peace again." She gives a stuttering breath, "We should be grateful."

And the darkness that had been festering in Graves burst forth.

"Grateful," he hisses behind his teeth. Seraphina pulls away.

"And where was I," Graves fists the sheets of the bed, his chest being eaten by fire, burning him black. "Where was I as magical beasts infested my city? Where was I as an Obscurus killed a non-mag? Where was I as the exposure of the magic world almost occurred?” Spit flies from his lips as his voice chords crack. “Where was I as Grindelwald pranced in my skin and no one _questioned_ it?"

He tears from the bed, knees almost buckling. But he refuses, refuses, refuses. He’s tired of being so _weak._

Racing over to the window he uselessly tries to open it, needing to breathe. Because it’s his city. His, he’s bleed over it, nurtured it, protected it. The one constant in his life.

Behind him, he can hear the twittering of nurses but knows Seraphina will wave them away. In strength they are equals… _were_ equals.

With a bitter laugh, hands shaking like a leaves in a storm he places them on the window, braces his fire hot forehead against the glass pane.

Magic is swirling like a tornado in his breast. He's a rabid beast, tensed, ready to lunge, to maim, to _do something_.

His breath fogs the glasses, obscuring New York from his eyes.

“I was trapped in darkness. Unable to see my limbs, unable to see as he took and _took_ .” He looks down at his toes. The skin baby pink, flushed with blood, too sensitive, numbing. “First my legs, then my arms, then my cheeks, then my teeth and he took and _took_. Til—”

Fisting his hair, he refuses to blink. Every muscle fluttering, heart the gallop of a horse racing off a cliff, he tries to speak.  

“He never touched my ears. I heard every day. I heard my voice, interacting with you, the other Aurors,” acid fills his mouth. “And no one noticed the real Percival Graves in a little cigarette case sitting in Grindelwald’s breast pocket.”

Finally, he collapses onto the floor. Mouth floundering like a fish on land he doesn’t dare look up, staring at the floor, shame and disgust swimming inside him.

Don’t cry. Don’t be weak. What more is Grindelwald going to take? 

 _Well. He did take everything in the end._ Percival remembers feeling the slick muscle of his heart.

The click of heels is stark in the suddenly quiet room. But Graves is stuck in his own world—unable to move.

The tips of her shoes appear under his eyes and the waves of self-hatred intensify, threatening to drown him.

“Seraphina,” he swallows, “I’m—”

“We are going to return the favor, Graves,” He starts, begins to lift his head at the muted growl in her voice. This isn't Seraphina, but the Madame President. “I promise you that.”

Her eyes are the burning blue of frost salamanders’.

“We will take his mobility, his wand, his freedom. His memories.” Seraphina’s voice reverberates through Graves's very bones. A hand touches his face.

“We will even take away his purpose, let him see a world bloom because he is locked behind iron and stone. He will suffer.” Graves is helpless to the warmth of her hand and pulls her close to him.

“I will ensure it.”

2.

Graves is in his hospital bed, flowers from distant family members and colleges fill the room with a cloyingly sweet scent, reminding him of his mother’s glass herbarium. Making him think of the last place where he truly felt safe. He twitches everything the click of the nurse’s heels passes his room.

He stares out at the moon from his hospital bed when he swears that he sees a snake-like beast’s shadow flint across the moon.

Blink.

The moon is nothing more than whole and grinning down at him.

3.

“I am so happy we found you, Sir.” Tina flicks her wand to place his few items into a leather suitcase. Graves impassively watches as his clothes and shaving supplies float from the bed. The flowers had already been moved to the children’s ward. “Really, right after Grindelwald was seen for who he was we began the search. Thank goodness the niffler found the cigarette case in the wreckage. Grindelwald must have dropped it.”

The cigarette case is the single item left on the bed. Graves cannot bare to touch it.

Tearing his eyes away from the silver case he notices the pregnant silence that had fallen over them. Tina is dressed in her hat and coat already, suitcase in hand. Big brown eyes stare at him with compassion.

Clearing his throat, he breaks eye contact. Picks the single piece of flint on his clothes, grateful for the shield of being back in waistcoat and trousers. Pulling on his sleeves primly he flints his fingers over his collar, when he swallows he feels the top button right at the apex of his chin and neck. Good. He claps his hands on his lap, knuckles white, but the incessant shaking is clear to his eyes. 

“Niffler?” he asks, trying to regain momentum.

“Yes, sir,” Tina loudly catches the conversation. “One of Newt’s, Mr. Scamander’s, creatures. Has a twitch for anything shiny.”

Another occurrence  that he had missed. Irritation flickers in the back of his throat as the longevity of time passed grows more apparent. Roughly pulling his coat over his shoulders, arms not coordinating, it was like wrestling fish caught in a net onto the ship deck. As the coat settled on his shoulder his scowl grew more severe. It’s an old gray one smelling of must as all the clothes Grindelwald had been wearing when captured had been deconstructed encase of any trickery.

Grumbling, he moves to stand.

“Ah!” He freezes, not expecting the sound. Tina holds her wand up, “Wait, Sir,” and flicks it. “Here.”

A silver cane appears in his lap. It catches the light from the rare winter sun, refracting light into the hospital room. Slowly he wraps his fingers around it, feeling the weight, tracing the visage that twists up and around the cane.

“A phoenix,” he observes.

“It’s from all of us,” Tina does a little shuffle, “Me and all the other Aurors in the department. And there’s another modification.”

Just as she says that his fingers trigger something in the cane and between the head and collar he sees a peek of dark oak. His _wand_. He had thought it had been destroyed.

He looks down at the cane with a new light, throat tightening.

“Let’s get you home, Sir.” A soft smile graces Tina’s lips as she waits by the door.

Grabbing the cigarette case and stuffing it into his pocket before he can think too much about it he takes his first step.

His left knee feels _loose_ , as if the tendons had been unwound, and to keep himself from falling forward he instinctively uses the cane. Fingers curling around the spread wings of the phoenix.

The severe crack of the cane against the floor makes him want to collapse back into the bed. This is permanent. These were the facts of life now. He was captured. He had been brutalized. He is a cripple.

Magic cannot fix everything.

4.

After severe magical healing, a wizard cannot do certain actions, such as Apparition.

Exiting the cab, Graves feels exasperated and vaguely nauseous from the cabbie’s driving. Carelessly he thrusts the money into the driver’s hands, already half out of the car. Thankfully his suitcase is shrunken and secured in his pocket as he almost falls into the slush right out of the door.

He looks up the stairs of his brownstone, hardening his resolve. He just has to get through the door.

Like a newborn foal, he crosses the ice slick sidewalk. Ignoring the burning stares of his neighbors from their windows he lurches up the stairs.

Get in, get in, get in.

Leaning heavily on his cane when he almost drops his keys for the fifth time he subtly twists his wrist.

Once the door is open he slips inside, slamming it behind him and falls against it. The stain glass windows cool the back of his neck.

He takes in his house. The darken living room filled with velvet covered divans and chaise in front of the marble fireplace. He can see the back room where the black granite dining table rests. Historical Victorian rugs cover the wooden floors.The walls are covered with family portraits, all of them asleep, too cold to bother waking in the winter season.

He flicks all the curtains open--killing the shadows. Listening for movement. He breathes.

Alone at last.

 _“But are you ever really alone, Percival?”_ a whisper breathed into his ear. A dark chuckle. Smoke climbs up cellar walls. “ _Another cigarette?”_

He flounders from the door, wand out, heart racing.

“Mr. Graves?”

He spins in place, throwing a hand out to catch himself.

“Who’s there?” he growls up at the stairs.

A man with fiery hair and averted eyes steps onto the landing between the second and first floor.

“I’m Newton Artemis Fido Scamander,” a shy smile with crooked teeth. He’s _British._ “Please call me, Newt.”

“Why are you in my house?” Graves demands.

Scamander tilts his head as if in confusion, one hand fiddling with his wand at his hip and another playing with a _twig_?

“Madame President put me here, stating that you’re my handler as the new consultant Magizoologist.”


	2. PSA

Going to be updating this! I am writing up the final 4 chapters if someone would be open to being my beta (pleaseeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeee)

Also it's a tad hard to do quality, as I'm p particular with my metaphors and not trying to get verbose. It's also hard to encapsulate Newt as I feel he's on the spectrum and I 100% want to convey him correctly. Also Percival with his internalized homophobia and PTSD.

Not to be TMI but I am an engineering student graduating this May so it's a little loco--I'll be posting the next chapter hopefully in a weeks time!  
Lol, if I do not post within the week you can totally just bug me loads (i was going to say stone but that muy impro-pro)

cheers,  
KingKiller

**Author's Note:**

> Will update ASAP
> 
> Please COMMENT IT KEEPS ME ALIVE


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